Neutral Drain - In A Word "Yuck"

[launderess]

Ok, now that the Whirlpool is up and running, can get on with some washing, and right off the bat am not that fond of this neutral drain bit.

Used to wonder why vintage adverts for front loaders would make a huge deal that water was extracted whilst laundry was tumbling, thus "dirty water is not drained through laundry", or in the case of overflow rinses on some top loaders (Frigidaire), that water "flowed over the top" of the wash taking dirt, soap scum ,and so forth with it, again versus draining the same through laundry.

In defense of my litle guy, this unit does have three spray rinses after the main wash, and another series after the rinse. This does seem to help as water is clear after the final spin. Have not bunged a load into the Hoover extractor to see what comes out after a high speed spin.

L.

 

[macboy91si]

Neutral Drain

I don't think it really matters unless one has ridiculous scum floating around. With any perf tub unit the "scum" can go right back into the clothes because unlike a solid tub design, the centrifugal force to going to force the water out the sides THROUGH the holes anyway, there is much less of the over and out since the tub walls are providing little resistance for the water. Now with a solid tub you can in theory achieve that, because the water has no choice but to follow the centrifugal motion up and then over the rim. At least with neutral draining, the theoretical dirt is not "forced" back into into the cloths. I think the high-speed spin and spray rinses after the rinse do a satisfactory job in this case. The neutral drain lasts too long on the portables,I have the same unit (in Lady Kenmore variety) as you.

This is just the way I see it anyhow, anyone else?

-Tim

 

[turquoisedude]

I always liked the neutral drain

I grew up with GE and GE clone washers and I thought the idea of spinning the wash water into the clothes as it drain wasn't that good for the machine, never mind the clothes. I was always afraid the motor would wear out quicker spinning all that water and wet clothes...

 

[duetboy]

And in Mom's GE...

..Once the water in the outer tub started spinning, it would hit the filter-flo flume and come right back in on the clothes. I always wondered why they didn't get some of it out before it started spinning, but it did make for some fun for a little kid to watch!

duetboy
aka Jeff

 

[nmassman44]

The best washer by far that I have used that doesnt leave a scum on top of the clothes is a Maytag Helical drive. Never had an issue with clothes getting that scum.
One washer that is surprising that has a neutral drain is my Miele 4800 washer. I was watching the washer do its thing during the wash cycle and then the drum stopped and the pump kicked on. No movement during drain. After the washer sensed that there was no water left then it would tumble and do its thing to get into spin.
Now my Speed Queen that uses a spin drain it leaves a scum on top of the load and plastered to the washbasket. After the 2nd deep rinse its no longer an issue and whatever is left is taken care of by the dryer. BUT when spring comes and I am hanging out laundry nothing gets me hotter under the collar than finding that scum on the clothes. Or I dont see it when they are wet but I sure see it when the clothes dry.

 

[rickr]

A spin drain only matters with a solid tub machine. Otherwise the dirty wash water still goes out though the clothes.

 

[launderess]

Tim:

Yes, the drain periods these little vintage portables are rather long. First few times one used the unit thought there was something wrong. Guess washer is designed to remove as much water as possible via the pump, so not to tax the motor, especially with heavy loads.

As for neutral draining in general, what everyone says makes sense.

Would be kind of hard to "float" away dirt with a tub full of holes, and a washer would need a *very* heavy duty motor to spin a tub full of water out of laundry for several loads per day over say 10 to 20 years.

 

[DADoES]

Whirlpool neutral drain

 
Launderess, your neutral drain time is largely a function of the timer increments. Two-minute increments, minimum possible time for drain is also two mins. The small tub on a compact likely is done well before then, particularly on lower water levels. 18# Whirlys typically had a 4-min drain (two timer increments) to allow both for the larger tub and for possible restrictions on the pump's flow rate. Units with recirculating self-cleaning filters, the filter tends to get clogged a bit as years pass. Our LDA7800 could drain a full load in just about exactly two mins for some years ... it gradually increased to 20 seconds or so into the 2nd increment.

Electronic-control machines had a variable drain period, typically double the time for water level reset + 30 seconds.

 

[magic clean]

The

neutral drain periods on the portable units are longer and the drain flow is restricted. This is done to allow the machine and the sink ample time to drain.

 

[bajaespuma]

Glad you started this thread!

IMHO the neutral drain periods on Whirly's were ridiculous; they went on forever even after all the water had left the building. I always thought the ideal situation was one that I used to create on a GE that I didn't care about. I used to hold on to the tub ring when the spin started; the water would drain about 1/2 way out of the tub, then I'd let the tub go and it would wind up into a fast spin. Not only did it not do the GE up-and-over-the-tub-ring and spitting out of the filter flume chaserei, but the load became very nicely balanced as it had a chance to settle on the bottom of the tub where it became nicely distributed and acted as a balance ring.

I, of course, wouldn't recommend doing this to a machine I cared about as I'm sure it would strain something, but it worked so nicely that I often wondered why they didn't engineer it to work that way. Got the idea years ago from our GE V-12. For some reason, occasionally the drain water would start to siphon out of the tub during the pause as soon as the agitation stopped(probably because the drain elbow wasn't set high enough in the standpipe). If you remember those machines, it took about a 4 minute pause(with lots of timer clicking and clunking) for the machine to continue on to spin. When the spin started, more than 1/4 of the water had drained out and the spin proceeded very smoothly and well.

The water exits my LG via a neutral drain, but with FL's there's so little water that it's hardly an issue. Also, the LG is so damn persnickety about having the tub balanced per-freaking-fectly before going into its spin that a spin-out drain would be out of the question. I presume that's also why the LG doesn't have a spray rinse, which, I must confess, I miss on these machines.

Did any of the old vintage weird-o machines like the Kelvy's or the Philco's do anything bizarre for drainage? I used to love how the 1958 Unimatic would go instantaneously from agitation to fast spin. Always wondered why all top loaders didn't do that until someone on this site said something about leads on the timer cam arcing. The spin cycle is what brought me to this obsession in the first place. Always had a thing for vortices.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

The neutral drain period on Whirlpool/Kenmores can be a little bit of monotony, but it's there for a reason. As DADoES said, timer increments are two minutes (for nearly all the machines except early BOL models). Two minutes is not enough to drain certain models completely in dealing with large capacity machines, or drains that are slightly elevated, or both, etc. Therefore 4 minute drain periods have been used for many years.

In later models from the mid seventies on, the same timers were used in multiple models, meaning the drain period needed to allow for the largest tub to be emptied by the slowest pump, along with some 'breathing room' time.

This means that for my 1980 Kenmore for example, which has the largest tub offered in belt-drives, and the slow, original design two-port pump, it uses at least half the drain period to empty. BUT, and this is a big "but", the timer model in that machine is used in many another Kenmore, some of which were standard capacity or even 24-inch standard capacity (1 gallon smaller yet). Some of those use the high-volume newer pumps which can empty a large capacity machine in under 45 seconds (these are the pumps that had people's drain hoses flying out of their rough-in boxes and sinks). So, with a smaller machine, they sit there idling away doing nothing (but looking pretty) for seemingly endless time periods. That is only amplified by the small capacity of the portables, which use the high-volume pump for it's small, third recirculating port.

As to dirt re-depositing on clothes - most (I dare say any) self-respecting detergent these days has anti-redisposition agents, which are designed to prevent dirt from re-settling on clothes. Considering the tens of millions of machines that have been made over the decades with neutral drains, if it was a big nasty problem the practice would have long ago been exploited by competitors successfully and done away with.

G

 

[DADoES]

 
Neutral or spin-drain of course is also related to a machine's mechanics. GE, helical-drive Maytags, and others that simply reverse the motor for agitate or spin have no choice but to do a spin-drain ... unless there's a separate solenoid-operated brake such as on the clanking Norges that do a partial neutral drain until the brake releases upon water level reset. Cabrio/Oasis/Bravos/F&P must do a neutral drain, as the basket is physically unable to spin while it's floated for agitation. Operational quirks and differences are what makes each brand and design interesting.

 

[bobbyderegis]

Maybe I'm just nuts, but I always felt that soap scum just sat on top of the clothes on neutral drain machines. I'll take a spin drain machine anyday. Launderess, I'm glad the vintage little guy (or gal) is up and running again. Hooray!
Bobby in Boston

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I feel the main benifit of having a spin-drain is that the clothes spread out better in the tub for more effective extraction and spray rinsing. Thanks to the ingeniously simple belt clutch on an old Maytag, the motor does not struggle.

That said, belt-drive Whirlpools rinse just fine.

Ken D.

 

[ingliscanada]

I remember...

...the neutral drain on my parents' old Inglis (I mentioned this machine a while back - an early 60's model). I used to think this function was just for suds saver washers. I thought every suds saver washer had a neutral drain, until I saw other makes spin drain the water out the suds hose. And I remember the long drain cycle; it was a long period of time that the tub was empty and the pump was howling as it was starved for water. I think many early WPs had this noisy pump. Also, I've seen ads that say that the dirty washer would be drained away under the clothes as they were suspended on top of the water. I also remember being in a laundromat which had Inglis washers. One customer looked inside and exclaimed, "This washer is not spinning!" I actually went over to him and explained how an Inglis works. I was only 11 years old then; I wonder what he thought of me - either eccentric or genious. I also remember when I was taking appliance servicing in college. People would work on washers and say, "this one drains before the spin; it's an Inglis." As you know, Inglis was for years WP's Canadian counterpart.

 

[bajaespuma]

Innnnersting

"there's a separate solenoid-operated brake such as on the clanking Norges that do a partial neutral drain until the brake releases upon water level reset."

Well, now I'm going to have to look for a Norge. Not that I would have passed one up if it came my way.There's a Monkey Wards on CL not too far away that may be a clone. Always a little curious about Norges. CU always praised their washing ability and good extraction but I had heard they were noisy. But, then again, so am I.

 

[toggleswitch2]

yup.

And you can make the machine spin sooner by moving the water-level switch to the "Reset" area, or retard it by moving the switch to a lower (or lowest) water setting without "resetting".